I read a story today, a true one, about a young man who hung himself at the age of twenty-three.
His story was horrific. The abuse he received as a child ruined him both physically and mentally and, apparently, emotionally.
It is so sad to hear about loss of young, talented people; even more so when it's the result of unspeakable evil done to them by pieces of shit that deserve a hell that Dante couldn't possibly imagine.
Hug your kids.
Listen to your friends.
Be kind. Always be kind. There is help out there, but you might not think...
Bocci. Bocci ball. Bowling on a lawn. That's what I was doing in that old photo. But strange. Usually you bowl with other people. Usually there's markings on the ground, a target ball to shoot from. In the photo, I'm just standing there in the middle of the lawn, facing the house. My house? God, I don't know whose house that is. It could be a field house, or a club house, and I'm playing bocci, a game I don't know how to play, have never, as far as I'm aware, ever played before in my life, and I'm hunched...
She didn't look at him. She couldn't. "Look at me!" he shouted. She didn't. She couldn't.
She did.
Then she did again.
This went on for several hours.
"Stop looking at me!" he shouted. But she didn't not look at him. She couldn't not.
Then she didn't.
He was always looking at her. It was a condition called Iseezyaz, which causes the poor soul to stare at the person closest to them for all of infinite eternity. "It is perhaps the most unsettling, and boring disease known to mankind," Dr. Jesus Katmandu, discoverer of the disease had said upon the...
Time to empty his pockets. Small knife worn ebony handle, three cheap plastic lighters, one engraved silver lighter, crumpled receipts, loose change, reading glasses, two cell phones (one pink). Notebook of newspaper clippings, photos, poems, doodles. He didn't know what to do about it. Recalled the shivery feeling when he looked through it, read the threats within the pages.
Kleptomania could be an interesting condition to have. Usually he was thrilled by his daily haul. Not today. Wondering if his conscience would make him warn the subject of the notebook.
She looks beautiful. Innocent. Unaware..
Shattered.
She had always had a fondness for that word, the way it reflected the brokenness it supposedly defined, the way the consonants lined up, hard and jagged on the ears and soul. Maybe that was part of its appeal. She had always had a fondness for broken things...
She stared at the black screen before her, out of practice and rapidly running out of time as the timer quietly mocked her, accused her, with its silent countdown. Time was running out. Would she have time enough to mend the shattered peices of her soul? In the seconds that remained...
The sun brushed against the back of her neck as she walked towards the corral. Her hands fidgeted with the rope, looping it and unlooping it, her fingers running along the rough hemp braids, pausing at the bands of electrical tape marking hand holds.
Gus held his hand out to help her up onto the fence as she reached the edge of the corral, a smile splitting his tanned face. "You ready?" he asked, his voice a hoarse rasp.
She nodded as she reached the top of the fence. Inside the corral, her horse stood saddled, its side pressing against...
He set the plate before her. She looked at him with greedy eyes. Seth sighed as he walked back to the kitchens. This is how it was every Thursday. She'd come in, sit, ask specifically for him and order. She had an unhealthy fascination with him that he found weird and he shuddered every time he saw her.
It was becoming more frequent, the amount of times he saw her. He'd see her at the bus stop, when he walked home from the apartment, and obviously at work. He wanted to find out what it was she wanted with him,...
They were trapped for seven days. God's work was able to be done in freedom: the dividing line between earth and sky, earth and ocean, the fecund fields with animals and birds, the oceans teeming with fish and monsters, the two legged animals - human beings - created to carry God's hope.
But the forces of chaos, of tohu and bohu, were chained for those seven days; trapped and kept away from the great work of creation.
There was order at work: chaos was trapped. There was fertility abounding: destruction was stayed. There was ingenuity in creation: blankness was put...
Boxes upon boxes upon boxes upon boxes.
Buried beneath more boxes and found deep below
even more boxes. We've built our lives around such
boxes. Filling them with such weighty things, keeping
them around because we're afraid to toss them and
who knows if we'll need their contents again
sometime in the future? We've built castles with these
boxes, making them larger and stronger fortresses
each day, stacking them on top of each other, careful
to not knock anyone else over. I, on the other hand,
don't like to keep boxes. They're too square and uncomfortable.
They remind me of...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take.
Clearly, it was better not to have to work for such a person. But on the other hand, if he left, he'd be leaving his co-workers to face her incompetence and maltemper himself.
What was he supposed to do? He had "Assistant Manager" on his resume now, it'd be easy for him to find other work. But over the past 6 months, he'd become good friends with a lot of his employees, who were all fun, smart people.
But, but he looked for another job. And he...